Chapter Seven

Think Strategically

By Ben Hart

Okay, now let’s move out of this mechanical stuff, and back to the fun stuff – the “stratgery.”

Yes, you must get these mechanics right and this technical stuff right to make the machine work.

But your overall strategy must be right as well.

As we have seen, the cornerstone of success for you is picking the right keywords and phrases -- keywords and phrases that are exactly in line with what you are selling.

I have shown you some great tools that can help you – such as Wordtracker.com, KeywordDiscovery.com and GoodKeywords.com

The mistake many make is to rely on these tools alone.

These are just tools.  A human mind telling these tools what to do is required.  Tools cannot make your strategic decisions.  Only a human mind can do that job. A human mind must tell the tools what to do.

As you begin your keyword brainstorming, at first you will have to take educated guesses as to what good keywords are for you.   Your guesses will likely be the obvious choices.  That might be good or it might not be good.  Trial and error -- testing -- will give you the answer.

As we have also seen, the obvious choices are everyone’s choices.  So these will be your more expensive keywords, and they won’t be as targeted as less obvious keyword phrases.

But the other problem with the obvious general keywords you might select is that, not only are they your most expensive keywords; very often these expensive broad category keywords are bringing in the wrong traffic entirely.

Let me give you an example.

I wanted to find realtors because I thought realtors would be perfect candidates for buying my marketing coaching programs, seminars and books.

But the keyword “realtor” is expensive if you want to be on the first page of Google.  In that case, I am competing against Remax, Century 21 and every realtor in America.

But that’s not all.  I’m also drawing a lot of  the wrong traffic to my site because someone looking for a realtor would also type that keyword into a search engine.

So I would be getting all those people also -- people who are looking to buy home, not take their real estate business to the next level.

So realtors would be the wrong keyword to pick if I want to market my materials to realtors.

What did work well for me was the phrase “realtor sales letters” and “sales letters realtor.”

It’s much more specific. And it’s super cheap.  I’m able to appear on the first page of Google  for about 20 cents a click with the phrase “realtor sales letters” or “sales letters realtor” and similar phrases.  Any realtor interested in sales letter is clearly interested in improving their real estate business.

Another keyword selection strategy that I use is that I buy as keywords the names of my big name competitors or big names of people in the arena I’m shooting for.

These are always very cheap. Let my competitors spend the big bucks to bring traffic here.  I figure anyone who is looking for what my competitors are offering are also looking for what I am offering.

It’s the gas station principle.

If you are a gas station, you want to put your gas station where all the other gas stations are . . . because that’s where people know to go to get gas.  You don’t want your gas station off by itself in some odd location where no one knows where to find you.  You want your gas station where the other gas stations are.  You want your car dealership where all the car dealerships are.

Same concept here.

Add your top competitors to your keyword list.

Let’s go back to my “realtors” example.  You can learn from the mistakes that I made and save yourself a boatload of money.

I mentioned that I was interested in reaching realtors.  I am also interested in reaching entrepreneurs in other industries and other fields.

But the most common keywords associated with those industries are expensive.

Keywords like “realtor,” “financial planner,” “CPA,” “attorney,” and “dentists”  are not only comparatively expensive -- they really are not targeted enough for me.

Remember, what I am trying to sell are my marketing services.  What I’m trying to sell are my study programs on marketing aimed at helping entrepreneurs in these fields and others grow their businesses.

So these are keywords that their customers might type into Google.

But I don’t want the customers of these businesses.  I want to reach the owners of these businesses.  I want to reach the entrepreneurs -- not their customers.

The keyword phrases that work best for me are simply “sales letters” and “marketing letters.”  Also “marketing plan,” “marketing strategies,” “marketing tips,” “marketing ideas” and “how to market.”

Turns out these phrases are relatively cheap.

For about a year, I was doing fine building the Inner Circle program for about 20 cents a click with these phrases.

I have since ramped it up to about 55 cents a click on average so I can be on the first page of the Google listings. 

Well – that’s working great because guess what entrepreneurs and business people need.  They need sales letters, marketing letters, marketing plans, marketing strategies, marketing tips, marketing ideas.

They also need websites, autoresponders, merchant accounts, shopping carts and all kinds of other tools to grow their businesses.

So if I want to reach entrepreneurs, the keyword “entrepreneur” is useless.

Entrepreneurs are not typing “entrepreneur” into search engines.

They are typing what they need to grow their businesses into search engines.

What do entrepreneurs most want to do?

They want to grow their sales.

The way they grow their sales is with sales letters, marketing plans and marketing strategies.  So those are these keyword themes I focus on.

So if I want to attract entrepreneurs, “entrepreneur” really is not a good keyword.

Not only is it expensive, but it’s off the mark.

Focus on what entrepreneurs want.  They aren’t looking for entrepreneurs.  They are entrepreneurs.

What they are looking for are “sales letters” and “marketing letters.”

They want better sales letters, more sales letters.

They also want lists.  They want lists of qualified leads.

So when you are selecting your keywords and phrases, focus on what you think your customers, your prospects are looking for.

My point with this illustration is to try to show you how to think strategically with your keyword selection strategy: How can you reach as many people in your target group for the lowest cost per qualified lead?

If you select the obvious keywords and phrases, not only will you spend more than you need to.  Very often your keyword won’t bring in the right people if you select too broad a keyword.

Let’s say you sell computers.

Usually, people are looking for a particular kind of computer.  Someone is looking for a laptop, for example.  Or maybe a particular model.

If you were to use “computers” as your key word, and just leave it as that, not only would you pay too much for that word.  Not only would you be competing against Circuit City, Best Buy, Dell, Toshiba, IBM and many other billion-dollar companies for that keyword -- but you would be reaching too broad an audience.

So maybe your ad should just be about “laptop computers” or perhaps more specifically about “Toshiba laptops.”

Not only will you pay less per click.  But you will bring people to your site who are looking specifically for that product.

Remember, in direct marketing “narrow is the gate to paradise.”

The narrower your focus, the better you do and the less you pay for each sale you make.

If someone is looking for a Yamaha Motorcycle, take that person to a website that only sells Yamaha motorcycles -- not a site that also sells Harleys . . .  because this person has already told you what he’s looking for. He’s told you by the keyword terms he has typed into the search engine.

Let me show you another way to think strategically.

Let’s say you are selling golf clubs and golf equipment.

What you are trying to do here obviously is attract golfers to your site.

But the keyword phrase “golf clubs” is pricey -- because you are competing against Calaway, Ping, Taylor Made, not to mention every golf shop in America for that keyword phrase.

Actually, even the keyword “golf club” is not as expensive as you might think because the big golf club companies and big ad agencies that run their marketing don’t know how to use AdWords or even the Internet to market their products.

Still, “golf clubs” is a comparatively pricey keyword if you want to be on the first page of search results.

But suppose you choose “Tiger Woods” as a keyword phrase.

That keyword phrase is actually very cheap.

If you pick that phrase, you can be on the first page of search results for about 25 cents a click.

And guess what.  As I write these words, 10 times more people searched for Tiger Woods’ name last month than searched for “golf clubs.”

Anyone interested in Tiger Woods is interested in golf and probably plays golf.

So not only do you have the potential of finding a whole lot more golfers by bidding on the phrase “Tiger Woods” as your keyword, but you’ll get clicks super-cheap.  Remember, a click represents a visitor to you site.

If you want golfers visiting your site, it’s cheaper to get them there with the keyword phrase “Tiger Woods” than it is with the keyword “golf clubs.”

So this is potentially a super cheap way to build your opt-in list of golfers.

If you are in the business of selling golf equipment, golf devices and instructional programs, this might be a terrific strategy for building your large opt-in email list of golfers who you can then start selling your golf products to.

I don’t really know if this would be a good strategy or not.  You would need to test this theory to see if it pans out in reality.  But it seems like a good strategy to me – certainly worth testing.

My point here is that you’ll need to be creative in how you reach your target audience to get the biggest bang for your marketing dollar using Google Adwords. 

Your strategy will also depend on what your goal is.

My goal is always to build a very large list of opt-in email addresses who have expressed interest in what I am selling -- or at least, in the topic I’m addressing.

The reason I want as large a list as possible of targeted opt-in email addresses is that it’s almost free to send follow-up email offers and communications with those on my email list.

It’s not like postal direct mail where its expensive to follow up.

With postal direct mail there’s the cost of the postage, the paper, the inserting, etc.

But once someone is on your email list, it’s almost free to follow-up with more emails.  That’s why I want a very large email list of people who have at least expressed some interest in what I am selling.

The big cost in internet marketing is acquiring the name.  My biggest online marketing expense is my Google AdWords bill.

After that, almost everything else I do in terms of follow-up marketing to my opt-in list is just about free.

That’s my business model.  And it works very well for me.